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Investigators Say Weight Shift May Have Caused Plane To Crash

May 27, 1997|By From Tribune News Services.

HOMESTEAD, FLORIDA — The five sky divers who died Sunday in a fiery crash of their Cessna near Homestead were seated unbelted on the cabin floor. Their positions and the possible shifting of their bodies just as the plane entered its fatal spin were seen as a possible cause of the crash Monday by investigators and other pilots.

The crucial moment was when the lone survivor, Carol O'Connell, 43, stepped onto a strut outside the plane, prepared to jump, said one pilot who saw the plane spiral to the ground.

"When the lady goes out on the wing, that creates drag and that is what could have caused the plane to lose just enough velocity to begin to stall," said Daryl Martin, president of Biscayne Helicopters and a small-plane pilot, who was fishing nearby. He said the pilot, Jason Thomas, who also died, would have had to maintain a speed of about 60 m.p.h. or the plane would begin to go down.

"That loss of velocity is what would cause them to go into that spin they were in, and without belts those people slide to one side of the cabin," Martin said. "That weight shift would make it hard for the pilot to pull out of it with everyone shifted on one side of the plane."

Investigators for the National Transportation Safety Board have said they are studying both the distribution of weight and the possibility that the plane's velocity was too slow.

"We're looking at the center of gravity," said investigator Jeffrey Kennedy on Monday. "The wings need an angle of attack to continue to fly. There was a disruption of this angle."

A team of eight investigators picked through the charred remains of the plane Monday. The investigation could last six months.